Eve Barlow: All Eyes On Rafah!
Rafah is a horrible situation because it’s war. An explosion happened. Civilians died. It wasn’t Israel, but as per usual, everyone blamed the Jews. Even the Jews jumped the gun this time. All the Jewish advocates blamed themselves, so accustomed to being gaslit. The IDF strike happened outside the humanitarian area, and then a Jeep packed with explosives inside the humanitarian area mysteriously set fire and ripped through the tent village. Awful. Hamas are awful.What is the ‘All Eyes on Rafah’ graphic and who is behind it?
You know what is more horrible than even Rafah? Selective outrage. So everyone is upset about civilian deaths in Gaza (reminder: caused by HAMAS). I get it. I see them. In droves. They’re so loud. Where were they on October 7? Oh they were drinking mimosas. Where were they when we released video footage of our young women being taken captive by rapist terrorists? Oh they were in the streets chanting for Free Palestine. They are the problem. This isn’t about them and their selective outrage and their Instagram stories proving they’re a good person. This is about life and death, and they are marching both Israelis and Palestinians to death at the hands of Hamas.
This here is for the morally bankrupt after the worst day online since October 7. Israel is uncovering all the evidence of a genocide on October 7 from the depths of Rafah in Southern Gaza, and guess what - the world is working overtime to stop it. And they have a new slogan to be spread across all forms of social media:
ALL EYES ON RAFAH
“All Eyes on Rafah” but the Red Cross didn’t find the bodies of the dead hostages underneath the UN buildings. Israel did.
“All Eyes on Rafah” but the UN never revealed that a tunnel system hid beneath the ground that goes into Egypt. Israel did.
“All Eyes on Rafah!” but nobody spotted the Jeep packed with Hamas explosives in the civilian area that caught fire and killed 45 people.
“All Eyes on Rafah!” but everyone is blinded by propaganda.
This is the propaganda. It appeared on everyone’s Instagram account today. I’m sure none of you escaped seeing this monstrosity in your stories. Behold, the snow-capped AI mountains of Gaza.
Yes that’s 35.3 million shares of this image. The faces in this post are people I used to be friends with. No more.
“All eyes on Rafah” is a phrase that’s been shared more than 40 million times on Instagram in less than 24 hours. The giant text, superimposed over an AI-generated image of Gaza has been posted by major celebrities, world leaders, and activists across the world.The All Eyes on Rafah Instagram post is another vapid, lazy way to say “I care”
The graphic, which depicts an endless sprawl of tents in a dusty landscape, can be reshared onto Instagram ‘stories’ with just one click. Users can see which of their friends have shared the post and can add their names to the list, which neared 40 million on Wednesday morning.
The story remains on a user's profile for 24 hours.
Numerous celebrities including model sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid, Bridgerton actress Nicola Coughlan, singer and presenter Michelle Humes, Ted Lasso star Brett Goldstein and actress Suranne Jones, have all shared the graphic.
The viral AI-generated graphic appears to come from a Malaysian/Singaporean photographer and content creator who goes by the usernames @shahv4012 and @chaa.my on social media.
Most of Chaa’s posts are snaps of daily life in Singapore, including photos of his wife, animals, and cars.
His other posts about Gaza include an AI-generated image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a blood-stained prison uniform and the name “Satanyahu”.
Another of Chaa’s “shareable” posts shows a map of Israel with the country's name crossed out and replaced with Palestine. It has been reshared over 15 thousand times.
I understand that there is outrage at the way Israel is conducting its war. The images coming out of Gaza often feel indefensible. As those of us who care about Israel know only too well, every mistake Israel makes puts more lives at risk both in Israel and outside. Every Jew feels the anger of the world towards Israel every day. We don’t need to be reminded to follow this war; we have no choice. That is not to say that well-meaning people from the safety of London or Berlin or wherever else can’t voice their anger. If they feel passionately, they should. That’s what makes the West different from places like Gaza under Hamas, for example.
But what does sharing an AI image that looks nothing like Gaza actually do? Does it improve the material conditions of civilians in Gaza? Does it make Israelis and Jews feel more likely to compromise, to accept a version of the future that ends in peace for both sides? No, it doesn’t. Just like the BLM squares before it, and the myriad “explainers” before that, the All Eyes on Rafah post is another vapid, lazy way to say “I care”, not “I care about bringing the conflict to an end with as little human suffering as possible”, not even “I care about all civilians killed”. It says nothing productive. Which is presumably why so many people have shared it.
To learn about the conflict and to formulate an opinion that maintains dignity for all sides is something that cannot be accomplished by sharing an Instagram post. The learning that so many people on and off line refuse to do will not happen with an Instagram post. All it does is make Israelis, who will have to be involved in any future peace process, feel, yet again, that the world doesn’t care about their suffering. That their pain is meaningless. There was no “All eyes on the Nova festival”, there were no eyes on Kibbutz Be’eri, people didn’t want to see Jewish pain, it didn’t fit the simplistic narrative they’ve concocted.
So while the All Eyes on Rafah sharers may feel like they’ve done something powerful, the truth is they don’t really care because their interest in the story will die when it drops out of the headlines. And the rest of us will have to live with the consequences.